am i too mediocre?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

<p>(Planning on applying SCEA)</p>

<p>Hi everyone, I spend a lot of time on this board and on CC in general; after visiting Harvard and attending the info session, I am confident this is the school I would like to go to. But, of course, Harvard tends to only accept the best, so I would like to get an opinion from all of you who are so active in this forum about where I stand. I feel like my application is... well... pretty mediocre. I do think, however, that there is more to getting into Harvard than "good luck, good scores, special status, with eccentric admissions officers." I just don't see myself as one of the people that Harvard would necessarily find attractive considering that there are about 10000 other "me's" next year applying.</p>

<p>ethnicity: half white/half asian
born in: us
attend: public ib high school
parents: mom 2 yr degree, dad no degree</p>

<p>gpa: roughly 3.85 unweight, 6.8 weighted (ranked 6/11,000)
psat: 222
sat: 780M/750V/780W
sat ii: 800 m2c/790 usHist/770 Chem/740 Lit/740 World Hist
AP's: 9 X 5 | 1 X 4 (in Art History)</p>

<p>-awards: some math competitions (Mu alpha theta), very minor violin awards, national ap scholar, rensealer or something medal of science, etc.</p>

<p>xc activities:</p>

<p>-running - been in cross country and track since freshman year, captain of cross country team in junior year (and will be this upcoming season), about 12 hrs/wk</p>

<p>-violin - played since i was 4 but not (necessarily) exceptionally good, though i do plan to submit a tape, 7 hrs/wk</p>

<p>-computing - kind of work-exp related, but i write computer articles for different websites and do computer repair work; i also am on google quite a bit for my correspondence in infosec mailing lists but thats just fyi, hold three industry certs but theyre pretty basic, A+ Network+ Security+, youngest person to receive A+/Net+ in florida</p>

<p>service:</p>

<p>-key club officer (small job, senior rep), spend 5 hrs a month on key club
-nhs member, spend 5 hrs a month on nhs
-volunteer at local cancer center for about 70 hrs each summer since 7th grade</p>

<p>-started (-ing) a pc donation service across florida, started summer before junior year with 14 families, now expanding to possibly 100 -200 this summer, working with teachers from my school on this as well</p>

<p>-special olympics, different benefit concerts, and all that jazz</p>

<p>work:</p>

<p>-currently intern at a law firm 32 hrs a week, its paid :-)
-worked in the past on many IT jobs, typically held a 40 hr/wk every summer since 2002, developed a lot of solutions for the company (a push update system, central licensing, group policy, etc)
-written many IT articles and guides for different sources
-also worked as a coder on Rent A Coder for small projects in C and VB
-worked on small productions as a violinist (paid)</p>

<p>Well, thank you for taking the time to read this. Tell me what you think I could realistically improve on by application time as well aswhat points I might emphasize more in my application. I think I am a decent essay writer, and I should get lovely recs from my teachers (lets hope). Thanks a lot!</p>

2

<p>Maybe. Do SCEA. What state are you from? Being from some Northeast states can really hurt.</p>

3

<p>sunny Florida - which makes running here just terrible</p>

<p>btw i am planning on doing SCEA ill put that in the original post</p>

4

<p>Make out like you're going to be the next Bill Gates. It's all done to the essay now.</p>

5

<p>Umm.. kind of a off topic question:</p>

<p>what's SCEA?
Sony Computer Entertainment America ? (Wikipedia, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCEA%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCEA&lt;/a> )</p>

6

<p>SCEA = Single Choice Early Action</p>

7

<p>haha I like Sony Computer, that's awfully creative. With the latest admission rates, I may have a better chance applying there than to Harvard</p>

8

<p>Thanks!! I was wondering why "SCEA " ...-.-""</p>

<p>I'm going to apply Harvard too~ but compared to you, powerrangers, omg I still have a long way to go~ ^^ my only srtong part are my languages :Spn, Chinese, Japanese fluent and some French and Latin~
but besides, that, nothing else to show off~ hahah~ ^^</p>

<p>Well wish you luck!! you deserve go get into Harvard after so much effort ^^</p>

9

<p>My dear friend...
NO you are not mediocre. Geez. I have been looking at these stupid "chances" posts (gak I hate them) and this is quite possibly the best I have seen. Not kidding.
I'd say you have a very good chance of getting in; it's all down to the essay and (basically) how you present YOURSELF (NOT your activities etc.; you as a <em>person</em>).
Good luck--maybe I'll see you on campus!
~lb</p>

10

<p>Do you know that there is a gramatical error in the title (not including the lack of capitalization)? </p>

<p>You see, you can't be TOO mediocre; mediocrity exists at one level. The word "mediocre" comes from the Latin medius (meaning "middle") which later became "mediocris." "Mediocris" evolved into the French "m</p>

11

<p>BTW, I highly doubt your rank (out of 11,000) as the largest school in the United States is only about 5200 pupils TOTAL (that honor belongs to Belmont Senior High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District, Los Angeles, California).</p>

12

<p>
[QUOTE=runningcircles1]
Do you know that there is a gramatical error in the title (not including the lack of capitalization)? </p>

<p>You see, you can't be TOO mediocre; mediocrity exists at one level. The word "mediocre" comes from the Latin medius (meaning "middle") which later became "mediocris." "Mediocris" evolved into the French "m</p>

13

<p>


</p>

<p>No, my dear friend. That "honor" no longer belongs to Belmont High. The current "largest high school" in the nation is Elizabeth High School of Elizabeth, NJ, which boasts 5,216 students.</p>

14

<p>My rank out of 11,000 is how our district ranks. We don't have any indication of rank-in-class except for who is #1, of course. Even that, however, is determined by your rank in county.</p>

15

<p>which school you go to? i never heard of a county in florida doing such a thing</p>

16

<p>KHS in Hillsborough County</p>

17

<p>do you know wendy? she goes to an IB hillsborough</p>

18

<p>i know of her but shes c/o 2008 i believe, and i dont go to HHS</p>

19

<p>kool, with respect to your app, your work experience seems to be quite unique and strong</p>

20

<p>Majorly off topic: sorry . . .to the rest of you
pikaso,
did you do independent study for latin.</p>